You have to be
mean to climb the social ranks in high school. But once you claw your
way to the very top, you have to chill out a little bit. Get nicer. Be a
benign dictator. Delegate the nastiness to your subordinates. That seems to be the message, at least.
High school life is less like Carrie and more like Mean Girls--the social carnage rains down upon the popular crowd far more than it does on marginalized loners. Why would a kid waste her time picking on an untouchable nerd when she could ascend the popularity ladder by taking out her slightly-cooler BFF? Faris says kids "in the middle to upper ranges of status" are the most bullied as they jockey for position within the high school heirarchy.
Schools and parents should let go of the stereotype that bullies are little cat-torturing psychopaths. "We need to direct more attention to how aggression is interwoven into the social fabric of these schools," Faris says.
[H/T Daily Intel]